Just as it is possible not to check for timestamp of cached ini files vs. the original files, it would be great to be able to speed up the template engine by allowing compiled template files to be served without checking 1st if source template is present and older than compiled version.
This is, afaik, all done within eZTemplateFileResource::handleResourceData().
It would be enough to add an ini parameter that disables the three lines at the beginning of the method:
if ( !file_exists( $path ) )
return false;
$tstamp = filemtime( $path );
and moves them down after the check for cache expiration.

Expected benefits:

• less file_exists and stat calls: zippier ez!
• can ship compiled template files to ez servers without having the tpl files next to them